A friend of mine is trying to get quake running properly on an Indigo2 195MHz R10K / 1GB / MaxImpact with TRAM option.He's going to do a review on a youtube channel of the system...

If you have a look at the video in this tweet:

You will notice at times some visual glitches in textures (they turn into glitchy blocks/lines of various colours).Has anyone had this issue before ?He's running a default quake config file created on first startup with resolution set to 800x600 windowed mode...

I would like to help him, but unfortunately I don't have an indigo2 system here myself, so I can only guess...I was wondering if someone has seen this and might know of any quake config file tweak(s) that could help ?

I've had a look myself and maybe it could be due to gl_multitexture or gl_palletedtexture use in the config file...

Also, the performance is pretty low in a 800x600 window, is there anyone that could share some options or a quake config file which is a bit more tuned (eg maybe lowering the color depth and texture filtering etc... I'm sure a higher resolution with a reasonable frame rate might be possible...

Thanks a lot for your help Terrence

Last edited by radiance on Wed Jan 04, 2017 9:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

SiliconClassics wrote:I played through Quake II on my Indigo2 MaxImpact and it killed one of my TRAM modules.

Tell him to go easy, those systems weren't designed for 3D gaming. If he wants to play Quake on IRIX an O2 might be a safer option.

I *repaired* some faulty TRAMs, and some observations:1. Yes they run hot.2. But I don't think that's the sole reason of failure. I think it's more a matter of mechanical stress in combination with thermal hot/cold cycles.

HighImpact and MaxImpact each come with 1MB TRAM standard, with 3MB extra as the TRAM 'option' for a total of 4MB TRAM. I've never heard anyone complain about the 1MB TRAM on the card set, it's always the option modules. And if you look at the mechanical aspects of the TRAM option modules vs. what's on the card set you'd understand. The TRAM chips themselves are QFP chips. The 3 TRAMs on the option card have a heatsink which is attached with kapton tape at the PCB ends, not screws. It bends the PCB, or at least puts a stress on it. To install the TRAM option, you press it down onto the graphics card. The force goes: fingers -> heatsink -> legs of QFP chips -> PCB -> connector.

Basically, the Indigo2 TRAM option is a poor design. I don't think you can kill it playing Quake, but please leave the card alone unless you really must take it apart.

Octane MXE/MXI TRAM option cards are a much better design, and if they fail it's usually a matter of re-seating them on the graphics card to make everything happy again.

To accentuate the special identity of the IRIS 4D/70, Silicon Graphics' designers selected a new color palette. The machine's coating blends dark grey, raspberry and beige colors into a pleasing harmony. (IRIS 4D/70 Superworkstation Technical Report)